Chrysanthemums

At the end of the summer, the lilies and hostas in my backyard garden were wilting. Sitting outside with my flowers through the summer, I watched every variety bloom then turn brown or lose their petals. Over the last five months, the garden had become my sanctuary, the place where I could go to cry without my husband and teenage son hearing me. Getting diagnosed with cancer a month into the Covid pandemic meant not going anywhere outside of our home, except for weekly trips to the hospital to get chemo pumped through my veins. Thank God for my garden.

In the evenings, my husband would rub my feet while I lay on the couch, trying to watch Netflix. The early morning, before anyone else in the house woke up, was my time. I couldn’t drink coffee but sipped on cold iced green tea outside watching the sun rise. I didn’t meditate exactly but asked for strength. I had a good hour most days before my husband, son, and dog would wake up and the sounds from our Zoom work meetings and online classes started reverberating through our narrow house. There was no space for private existential panic attacks — except outside with my flowers. When friends called to check on me, I took my phone and ran out to the garden. When they asked how I was doing, I couldn’t find words. I said all of the things to the flowers, though. They listened, not frightened. The flowers held my fears.

Labor Day came and the yard felt suddenly empty without summer’s orange lilies, my rose bushes, the tall native sunflowers I had planted a few years before that bursted with bright yellow petals through July and August. I daydreamed about venturing to the garden store to buy chrysanthemums, new autumn companions for the three months left of my chemo. Friends and neighbors were helping us with trips to the grocery store or pharmacy then; everyone understood what getting Covid would mean for me. I did not want to ask anyone to make an extra trip to the garden store. This virus was random, anyone might be vulnerable. Not worth it.

Over the coming weeks, grabbing a light sweater for my early morning sits, I imagined chrysanthemums there: yellow and orange, purple and red. Vibrant and hopeful. Sometimes I closed my eyes and saw future seasons: winter, spring, summer, fall. Cycles of them. Years ahead. My life, and my family’s life, moving forward in time.

Then on the seventeenth day of September, my mother died unexpectedly. The sudden piercing of grief piled on top of my low white blood count left my body with a shaking that I couldn’t stop. I held my computer and wrote Mom’s obituary and then eulogy furiously, weeping. NPR was playing in the background and I heard that RBG died, too. Maybe she and Mom would chat, their souls reaching the world beyond together. 

The next day was Rosh Hashanah. I dipped a slice of green apple lightly into honey, but the metallic aftertaste of chemo in my mouth turned its sweetness bitter. 

Mom’s outdoor funeral was the day after Rosh Hashanah. My husband drove the four hours to the small town where I grew up, where my parents had bought plots in their Temple’s cemetery. My son must have DJed music for us, as he always does on road trips, but I don’t remember what he played. When we arrived, we walked towards my father, siblings, and my nephews, who were standing near the open grave. None of us had seen each other in person for months. We fist-bumped tearily. I read the eulogy that I wrote for Mom, weeping into my mask. My glasses kept fogging. 

The rabbi closed the service with a song. We took the hand spade, shoveled mounds of dirt onto Mom’s grave. There was no meal of consolation. We said our goodbyes and got back in the car to drive home. Those were the loneliest four hours of my life. All I wanted was a safe way to stay with my Dad. 

It was early evening when we pulled up to our house. I was in a hurry to text my neighbor who was watching our dog while we were gone for the day. I walked up to the front porch, eyes on my screen: Just got home, I typed. Then I looked up and saw them there: the baskets of chrysanthemums that someone had left for us. Orange, red, purple, gold, ruby, pink, multi-colored and white. 

I froze in my steps, like in a slow-motion movie scene. I hadn’t mentioned my yearning to anyone. The chrysanthemums spoke as I moved towards them, whispering in my mother’s voice: Live, honey. Live, live, live!

Gabrielle Ariella Kaplan-Mayer is a writer based in Philadelphia, working on a memoir about intuition, ancestors and grief. She works as Ritualwell’s Director of Virtual Content and Programs and writes a weekly Substack called Journey With The Seasons.